Economic Roundup

Economic Roundup by Bruce Bartlett

On the MLR gap between productivity and compensation, the degree to which it can be measured is the degree to which the labor market is in monopsony. One feature of monopsonies is that they are inelastic to minimum wage increases, since the monopsonist will simply absorb the increased costs rather than discharging employees. Of course, they may also up their contributions to the GOP in order to forestall these increases.

On the NY Fed Foreclosure Study, I would be interested to whether BAR had any effect on the behavior of ratings agencies. They did not look into it, but they did provide an email address.

The Football Top 10 All Time

Last weekend, I learned that Green Bay had more championships than I thought. From 1921 through 1933, the championship was awarded to the team with the best win-loss record. There were no playoffs, as the entire league was the size of a large division in baseball.

Should these champions ships count? Of course they do - however they should not be considered the equivalent of winning a Super Bowl in my view. You are, of course, free to think differently. My entire point in doing this list year after year is that everyone is free to conclude what all-time greatness means. There is no one answer to this question. Certainly the League's view that statistical championship percentage is more important than the absolute number of championships lacks common sense, which opens the door for better measures.

If the pre-1933 championships were counted, then all Division titles should also go into final rankings, since they are equivalent. I will leave that calculation to someone with better automated data, especially if it includes, as mine does, a flow of rankings throughout the years. As far as doing it manually, even I am not that OCD.

Without further ado, here is this year's top 10. Since I am feeling less OCD, I will only include rankings by number of trophies.